


Speed on the Inside Line

by GrayJay



Series: Rex Racer on the Final Turn [8]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Canon Divergence, Epilogue, Summers Brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 17:43:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3217910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last two weeks have been a nonstop avalanche of fucked-up: mad scientists and friendly Egyptology professors who turn out to be supervillains, and robots, and honest-to-god fucking <em>dinosaurs</em>, and waking up tied to an altar with a knife against his neck, and his brother is fucking <em>Cyclops</em>; and if he’s been dealing so far, it’s only because he hasn’t taken the time to think about it all at once.</p><hr/><p>Scott and Alex, in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where to Start

**Author's Note:**

> Officially, this is the epilogue to [_Rex Racer on the Final Turn_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356574/chapters/5200295), a diagonal-to-canon slow build to Alex's first appearance in the comics. In theory, it can stand alone, but it'll help if you're familiar with _RRotFT_ and _X-Men_ #54-61.
> 
> For anyone following along with the comics continuity, _Rex Racer on the Final Turn_ weaves in and out of canon. This epilogue splits from the comics around _X-Men_ #61--post Living Monolith, Larry Trask, and Karl Lykos; but without the Savage Land stuff.

Dear Scott,

I’m so sorry for everything. Egypt and Trask and Lykos and disappearing and now I’m being a coward and sticking this under your door instead of having the balls to say it in person.

I keep wanting to ask if you’re mad at me, but that sounds ridiculous. Of course you’re mad at me.

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

I don’t know where the hell to start. With any of this.

I’m so sorry.

-Alex


	2. Nothing to Be Sorry for

Dear Alex,

I’m not mad at you, and you have nothing to be sorry for.

Love,  
Scott


	3. Fucking Explode

Scott,

You are so full of shit. How can you even think that? I fucking sold you out, and every other mutant in the world, just because I was scared. You should hate me.

Everyone is so nice and acting like this shit is normal, and I fucking explode. I wish you’d left me in Trask’s lab.

-Alex


	4. Actual Danger

Dear Alex,

Either you’re not there or you’re not answering your door.

If you want to talk, come find me. I’ll be in the Danger Room most of the day. (Recalibrating, so, no actual danger. If the door’s locked, just knock.)

Love,  
Scott


	5. Speed on the Inside Line

There had been a precious day and a half when Alex had really believed that Dr. Lykos might have cured him, siphoned away his mutation; when he wore his own clothes and kind of even flirted with Lorna between slinking around avoiding everyone else. And then Lorna had thrown open a window, and Alex had _felt_ it; and no matter how fast he slammed the blinds shut, he knew it was back, and that he was fucked, really and truly and forever.

So now he’s back in Trask’s monkey suit, glancing down at the chest every few minutes, watching the faint pulse of the first two rings reflected in the elevator door all the way down to the sub-basement and trying really hard not to cry or run. (Like this is something he can even run away from; and that thought takes him back to little-kid Scott trying to run away and hide from being mad or sad. Grown-up Scott just sets his jaw and grits his teeth; and Alex thinks it’s fucking bullshit that between the two of them, Scott got both shares of control.)

The Danger Room is the only place in the sci-fi brushed-steel sub-basement that Alex has clearance to access, and he’s only seen it once--a big, empty metal room with a really misleading name. It’s where he’s supposed to go if needs to shoot off his powers, and Scott says it’s more than sturdy enough to contain the blasts. Lorna says so, too--and she can describe the forces at work in terms Alex actually understands and trusts--so that’s something at least.

It has a three-point lock--handprint, retina, and voice--which seems like a lot of trouble for a big metal vault, even one where superheroes go to beat each other up. Now, though, the scanner array is dark; so Alex pushes back a blast door that’s way the hell too heavy to just be steel and finds himself face to face with a mob of fucking _robots_ \--not Sentinels, but these looming chrome spider things with mounted laser sights that look like they belong on a movie poster from the ‘50s. 

Alex jumps back with a yell, and from somewhere past the spiders, he hears Scott call, “Sorry! Just a sec,” and then, “Danger Room, end program. Standby mode, full safeties, execute.” There’s a mechanical whir, and the robots waver and vanish. What’s left is the Danger Room Alex has seen before: paneled metal walls, thick plexiglass window to a control room high on the western wall. Scott’s kneeling in the far corner, hammering on the edge of a loose panel.

“ _What the fuck?_ ” says Alex, because the Danger Room Jean had shown him was a fancy-ass saferoom, not _Satan’s holodeck_.

“Solid-light projections, mostly,” says Scott, grinning like a kid showing off his best toy. "The actual robots don't come out in safe mode." Checks the seal on the panel he’s just replaced, and says, “Danger Room. Environment A-15, passive, full safeties. Execute.” The air shimmers again, and suddenly they’re in a jungle.

“Holy shit,” says Alex. “It _is_ a holodeck.”

Scott grins. “Oh, man, you have no idea. Danger Room. Tea, Earl Grey, hot. Engage.” The trees and vines disappear, replaced by the bridge of the _Enterprise-D_.

Alex cracks up in spite of himself. “You nerd.”

Scott laughs. “Oh, this one was all Hank. I’d have gone with the original.”

Alex touches a chair, and feels the vinyl give a little under his fingers--if he didn’t know, he’d never guess it wasn’t the real thing. Scott perches on the back of the captain’s chair, jeans and worn sweater incongruous against the sci-fi set dressing, the closest to relaxed Alex can remember seeing him; and it’s a punch to the gut, a reminder that the Scott he thought he knew was just as imaginary as the one he’d made up back in Hawaii.

 _This was a mistake_ , Alex thinks. Aloud, he says, “You’re busy. I can come back.”

“No,” says Scott, “It’s fine.” Looks around, a little sheepishly. “Sorry. I know this can be--a little much. Danger Room, end environment. Standby mode, full safeties, execute and voice-lock, authorization Cyclops.” The bridge shimmers, and they’re back in the empty room. 

Scott stands there like he’s waiting for Alex to say something. Alex doesn’t, and after a minute, Scott says, “I was, um. I was kind of hoping we could talk.”

“Sure,” says Alex, like it’s nothing. “Yeah. Talk.”

“How are you doing?” Scott asks. Looks nervous, hands balled in his pockets. “With, um. Everything?”

“I--” Alex starts, fully intending to lie, but instead he just fucking _loses it_ , breaks down crying in the middle of the room.

“Alex,” Scott says. “Hey. C’mere.” Holds out his arms, and Alex just kind of stumbles in, and keeps crying, because the last two weeks have been a nonstop avalanche of fucked-up: mad scientists and friendly Egyptology professors who turn out to be supervillains, and robots, and honest-to-god fucking _dinosaurs_ , and waking up tied to an altar with a knife against his neck, and his brother is fucking _Cyclops_ ; and if he’s been dealing so far, it’s only because he hasn’t taken the time to think about it all at once. Scott holds on to him until he’s calmed down a little, then sits down on the floor, back to the wall. “I know it’s hard right now, but It’s going to be okay. It really is.”

“I’m a monster,” Alex tells him. “They should lock me up somewhere and throw away the key.”

“You’re not a monster,” Scott says.

“You’re a fucking moron,” Alex tells him, and he’s not sure if he’s going out of his way to prove the point, or if this is just what he is these days. “You have no fucking idea what I am, because you’re a--a fucking Vulcan or some shit.”

Scott just sits there, looking at him.

“You don’t--you don’t lose control, or panic, or--you have no idea. I fucking _explode_ , Scott.”

“Alex--” Scott starts.

Alex cuts him off. “And I sold you out, and everyone you care about, and an entire fucking species, for a pat on the head and some empty fucking promises. So don’t fucking start telling me you _understand what I’m going through_ like I deserve your goddamn bullshit sympathy, mister moral fucking high road. You don’t owe me a goddamn thing.”

“Alex,” says Scott. “Calm down.”

“Fuck you!” Alex yells. His ears are ringing, and there’s a metallic taste in the back of his throat, but he’s too angry to notice, too angry to think about what that means.

Scott grabs his arm. “ _Calm down_.” Points to his chest, and Alex looks down and sees three glowing rings.

* * *

The problem with his powers isn’t just that he can’t really control them; it’s that the harder Alex tries, the less predictable they get. He can push down the explosions until suddenly he _can’t_. The ringing in his ears is getting louder now, and he knows he’s hyperventilating, but he can’t stop.

“Alex,” says Scott. “Look at me. Breathe.”

“Fuck,” says Alex. Everything is fuzzy and warped, and he knows he’s got minutes at most. “I--I can’t--”

“ _Yes, you can_ ,” says Scott. Suddenly he’s all Cyclops, competent and in charge. “You’re fine. _Breathe_. You’re in literally the safest place you could be. The Danger Room can take anything you can throw at it, and we already know your powers can’t hurt me.” Walks Alex to the middle of the room. “You can do this. Don’t wait to explode. Aim it. Imagine the energy going through you. Like lines, leading out through your hands. _direct it_.” Hands on Alex’s elbows, raising his arms, palms out, and Alex can hardly hear Scott over the rising roar in his head as he says, “You can do this. _Breathe_.”

“Okay, Racer X,” says Alex, and lets the world go white.

* * *

Alex snaps out of it with his ears still ringing. He opens his eyes, and looks at the seamed metal walls of the room--still standing, not even dented. He catches a movement out of the corner of his eye: Scott, picking himself up from a corner. 

“I’m fine,” Scott says before he asks. “Don’t worry. That was great. You did really well.”

Alex nods, blinks until the tracers fade. He feels--drained. _Clear_ , for the first time in days. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I-- _fuck_.”

“Alex,” says Scott. Pulls him down so they’re sitting on the floor. “Listen to me a minute, okay?”

Alex nods.

“You’re going to be fine. Did you see what you did?” Alex shakes his head--he remembers Scott talking to him, and then the sudden, explosive rush of energy. “You directed it. Most of it. You’re getting the hang of this. I know it’s scary right now, but--”

Alex shakes his head. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

Scott sighs, pulls off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s got a headache. His eyes are still shut, and without the glasses, he looks younger, and impossibly tired. “Look, I know you don’t have a lot of reason to trust me right now, but--”

“No fucking kidding, _Cyclops_ ,” says Alex.

“Right,” says Scott, pushing the glasses back on. “Okay. I deserved that. But--just listen. For a minute. Please.” He sounds--nervous. Scared, maybe, and it’s weird enough to shut Alex up.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Scott echoes. “Um. First of all. Control. I do actually, um, know where you’re coming from there, because I can’t. Control my powers. At all. I, um, I sort of assumed that was obvious.”

“Bullshit,” Alex snaps. “I’ve fucking _seen_ you. In fights, and--”

Scott cuts him off with a harsh laugh. “You’ve seen the _visor_.” Points to the glasses. “Why do you think I live in these? Because I’m so very _fun and quirky_?”

Alex hasn’t really had time to think about it at all. “You said they were for--”

“Eye problems from the crash,” Scott finishes drily. “ _Yeah_.” Scuffs his foot against the floor. “I mean, if you’re going to get technical, the problem is actually brain damage, but--” Alex wonders how many other not-technically-lies he’ll find if he picks through all those old letters.

“So, anyway,” says Scott, “my eyes have two settings, which are closed, and full blast. Being blind isn’t ideal, but it’s navigable--I’ve done it before--but as long as I’m metabolizing sunlight, the energy doesn’t stop, it just builds up. Remember those headaches I used to get? When we were kids? That's what happens.”

“Jesus,” says Alex. “That sucks.”

Scott shrugs, looks like he’s about to protest, then changes his mind and just says, “Yeah.”

“Sorry,” says Alex.

Scott shakes his head. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fun, but--anyway. The rest. Trask.”

Alex braces for the lecture he knows he deserves--fuck, he deserves a lot more than a lecture. “I am so fucking sorry. I know that doesn’t fix anything, but--”

“Okay,” says Scott. He’s staring fixedly at something on the floor. “You, um, you need to listen, because I’m not doing this more than once. I, um. I told you I ran away, right? When I was fifteen.”

“From the orphanage, right?” says Alex. It’s one of very few things he knows about Scott’s life before the Institute; all Alex knows about what came after is that it was bad enough that Scott won’t tell him anything about it.

“Yeah,” says Scott. “I, um, there was an accident. With my powers. I, um, got in a fight, and my glasses got knocked off, and I didn’t get my eyes shut in time and took out about half a building.”

“Okay,” says Alex. “I get it. You can’t control your powers. I still don’t see what this has to do with--”

“That’s not--just _listen_ ,” says Scott. “I didn’t--I mean, I didn’t really know what was happening, just that suddenly I was--and I just--I just ran. I didn’t have a plan, just getting as far away as fast as I could. I was sure if anyone caught me, I’d end up dead, or locked up in a lab somewhere. Or they’d have sent me back to the orphanage, which honestly--I think I’d have preferred the other two. Given the choice.

“The part I told you before, about stealing and hustling pool, that was true. But when you’re fifteen, and you look fifteen, and you’re in bars, things can get complicated, fast. And I couldn’t afford to get into fights, because if I lost my glasses--and getting arrested would have been even worse. So I didn’t--there weren’t a lot of options.”

Scott goes quiet again. Takes a couple breaths, jaw clenched. Alex wishes he could see his eyes, wishes he knew where the hell this was leading.

When he starts talking again, it’s in a tight monotone. “Jack found me outside Chicago. He was--I don’t think he actually knew as much as he acted like he did, just that I was a mutant, and I was running away from something. He was a telepath, but really, really low level--nothing like Jean or even Lykos. I don’t think he even really had any conscious control. He just knew that he could read people pretty easily, and that they tended to do what he wanted. I don’t even remember if he ever even explicitly said he could help with my powers. Maybe he just implied it, and I was so desperate I filled in what I wanted to hear. I think I knew on some level that he was lying, from the start. I just--if there was even a chance, you know?”

Alex nods. He knows this chapter, at least: Trask finding him in the desert, shady as fuck, but with that white coat and winning smile and the promise that Alex could maybe be a person again instead of a bomb; and Alex didn’t even bother to ask what it would cost him, just shook the fucker’s hand and climbed on board.

Scott keeps talking, his voice flat. “Anyway, he said he needed me to help him with--some stuff--first. Which turned out to be a bunch of B&Es. A couple banks, and then mostly labs. I told him I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, and he said that was fine, and it was, for a while.”

Which puts a few more things into perspective. “This is what you wouldn’t tell me about. Before.”

“Yeah,” says Scott. He still won’t look at Alex. “At first, it was pretty simple, but after a little while, the plans started to involve taking out guards. And I told him--what he’d said at the beginning, how I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, and he, um--” Scott breaks off, furrows his brow. “Anyway. It didn’t go well, and after that, we both pretty much stopped pretending it was anything other than--what it was.”

 _Jesus_ , thinks Alex, _even when you’re telling the truth, you can’t bring yourself to actually tell the fucking truth, can you?_ Starts to say it, but then he sees the set of Scott’s jaw, the way his shoulders are hunched, and decides to keep his mouth shut.

Scott doesn’t say anything, either, so finally, Alex asks, “What did you do?”

Scott sighs. “I. God. I’m really not proud of this, but--I went along. I never--I never really even tried to run. I made up excuses--like, if I helped plan, I could make it so there was less, um. Less collateral damage.

“And Jack had--he’d made it pretty clear that if I got away, he’d find me. I don’t know if he actually could have. Probably. And even if he didn’t, if I got caught--and it would really just be a matter of time--it wouldn’t take much to connect me to a series of violent break-ins at high-security government labs. I mean, best case, they’d throw away the key.”

Alex’s hands are locked in fists, nails biting into his palms. “You were a _kid_.”

Scott laughs. “I was a _dangerous mutant_. I mean, look, Alex, I’m--I’m like a caricature of what people mean when they say that. _Dangerous mutants_. Like something out of pulp sci-fi. I mean, I shoot energy out of my eyes.” He sighs, fiddles with the edge of his glasses. “That was the real reason I didn’t leave, I think. I was scared. Not of Jack--I mean, yes, obviously I was scared of Jack, I wasn’t stupid; but I was more scared of my powers. I felt like--a time bomb. A loaded gun. You know how it is.”

“Yeah,” says Alex, because, god, he really does.

“Yeah,” echoes Scott. “And that was the other thing. Jack, um, he was was--big. Really big. And really strong. And I wasn’t--I mean, there was just no way I could have gotten past him without using my powers. I don’t even know if I could now. And I didn’t have the visor back then, and half the time I didn’t even have--and I didn’t think I could--I was scared I’d kill him. And I wasn’t going to--I mean, there weren’t a lot of lines left, at that point. But that was still--that was a line. You know?”

Scott finally turns to look at Alex. “So, um--you asked if I was mad at you about Trask. And the answer is, I’m not, and I’m not going to be, because I know what it’s like to be that scared of yourself. Your powers. I mean, I know it wasn’t exactly, but--I basically made the same deal you did. So I know you wouldn’t have worked with him if you’d thought you had any real choice. If I have a place here, so do you. Okay?”

Alex just sits there, back against the wall, trying to wrap his head around any of what Scott’s saying. It’s the last thing he’s been expecting to hear--the last thing he _wants_ to hear, because if Scott isn’t going to hate him for this, who the fuck is? Wants to yell at Scott until he understands the difference between being fifteen and going along with the psychopath who’s pretty much kidnapped you and being 21 and going along with the fucking genocidal lunatic who plucks you out of the Egyptian desert while you’re running away from people who could actually help--and realizes how much he sounds like Scott rationalizing why staying with Jack was his mistake, too; and how cleverly Scott has set that up, so that if Alex is going to keep hating himself for Trask, he’s pretty much blaming Scott for Jack; and _god fucking damnit_. Wants to punch something, smash something. Wants to explode--but not like that, because it’s become way, way too literal lately.

Instead he says, “Wow. That’s--” _Fucked up. Broken. Beyond broken._ He doesn’t have words for what it is. “God, Scott.”

Scott's forehead creases. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to--I just--I didn’t think you’d believe me. About Trask. Unless you knew. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have, if I were you.” 

Which, yeah, he’s not wrong.

Alex goes ahead and says it, because he knows he’s not going to work up the balls to ask again, and they’ve already come this far-- “What ended up happening? With Jack?”

For a moment, Scott looks like a deer in headlights, like he’s trying to decide whether to bolt or stay. Alex realizes his brother must have thought he could just drop the story there, tie it up with his neat little moral and tuck it away, back with the rest of his secrets. Remembers what Scott wrote about the parts of his past he doesn’t talk about, _ever_ , and feels like an asshole. “I mean, if you--if that’s okay. You don’t have to. Sorry.”

Scott bites his lip and thinks for a minute, and then says, “No, it’s fine. It was--” pauses again, like he’s looking for the words, and it occurs to Alex suddenly just how much Scott _still_ isn’t saying, and how bad the blanks must be if he’s content to leave them for Alex to fill in. 

“It got really bad really fast,” Scott finally says. “And eventually, he, um, there was a guard who wasn’t where he was supposed to be. And Jack told me to kill him, and I said no, and Jack, um, Jack tried to kill me.”

Scott’s laugh is brittle and humorless, and it stings even worse than the way he still won’t look at Alex, the way his voice is tight and flat and a little too fast, like a kid closing his eyes and making a desperate dash through a haunted house. “Tried, hell. I mean, he would have killed me. He almost did.”

He looks almost _confused_ when he says it, like he can’t quite wrap his head around it, and Alex doesn’t know what the fuck to do with this, with any of it, hands balled up so hard they’re starting to ache, and this weird hollow feeling in his chest like someone’s pulling out everything that matters, as Scott goes on. “That’s so weird to--I don’t think I’ve ever actually said that aloud before. But, yeah. There’s absolutely no question. And I did actually fight back at that point, with my powers, but by then he was--See, he’d been--the places we’d been breaking into, he’d been--I don’t really understand the science at all, but he was turning himself into living diamond, basically. I think Professor Xavier called it an, um, an induced secondary mutation. And by that point he was just--impossibly strong.”

Scott’s voice is still a careful blank, but Alex can see him stiffen as he talks, the way his jaw goes tight and he pulls his arms in close.

“Jesus,” says Alex. “Scott--”

He tries to put a hand on Scott’s shoulder, and Scott flinches, pulls back. “Please don’t. I’m sorry. It’s not--just--not right now, okay?”

“Sorry,” says Alex. Hands back into fists, fists in his pockets, elbows jammed against the wall. “Okay. Sorry.” And _that’s_ the worst part of all of this, he thinks--that there’s nothing to push back against. Doesn’t matter if you send the Sentinels flying into the sun, or what happened to Trask or to this Jack motherfucker in the end; doesn’t matter who they hit or how hard, everything’s still broken, and there’s not a fucking thing either of them can do to fix it. Wonders if that’s why Scott does what he does, with the X-Men.

Scott’s looking at him, looking _worried_ , and he was wrong about the worst part, because that’s even worse, a million times worse. “Are you okay?” he asks Alex.

“ _No_ ,” Alex says. “Jesus fucking Christ. No. This isn’t--you know how fucked up this is, right? All of this?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t--I know it’s a lot. We can stop.” He sounds almost hopeful.

Alex shakes his head. “I’d still rather know. You know? I just--I don’t get how you can just talk about it like that. Like it’s just--stuff that happens. Happened. Like it’s _normal_.”

Scott shrugs. “It kind of is. I mean, I know it’s not _normal_ -normal, but after eight years--you get used to things, you know?”

And _god_ , suddenly so much about Scott makes so much sense. “That’s not--there are things you shouldn’t get used to,” Alex says. Wonders if anyone ever sat his brother down and explained that before now.

Scott bristles. “What do you want me to say, Alex? Would it help if I told you it was fucking horrible, and I still have nightmares? It was. I do. But at the same time--I mean, this is my life. I still have to wake up every morning and do my job. And if there’s anything you should be taking away from the last few weeks, it’s that _normal_ is pretty goddamn relative.”

Alex thinks there’s a flaw in Scott’s logic, somewhere, but he’s too fucking wrung out to go looking, so he asks, because it’s the only thing he can think of that might have a chance of killing the thing still eating its way through his chest. “How’d you get away?”

“I didn’t,” says Scott. “Professor Xavier, um, showed up. Stopped Jack. Got me out.”

“Oh,” says Alex. “How’d he find you?”

“Cerebro,” says Scott. “It’s sort of a telepathic amplifier. And mutants have, ah, slightly different brain signatures than humans, I guess? It’s not really--I don’t really understand how it works; you’d have to ask Jean. Anyway, he’d built an early prototype, and he kept getting these blips, and--the timing was just unbelievably lucky.”

“You said, before--he’d saved your life--I didn’t think you meant it so--”

“Literally?” finishes Scott. “Yeah. It was more than that, though.” Alex can hear the sadness creeping into the edges of his voice. “After, um, he stopped Jack, he said I could come with him. If I wanted. That he could help, and I wouldn’t have to, um. Keep running.” He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t trust him at all. I mean, there were only a few reasons I could think of that someone like him would--and after Jack, god. But at the same time, I was in pretty bad shape, and I didn’t really have anywhere else to go, and whatever it was, it wasn’t like it was going to be _worse_ , you know?”

Alex leans his head against Scott’s shoulder, and this time, Scott lets him stay. “I figured the best I could expect--I mean, if he really did somehow turn out to be a decent person--I figured he’d probably turn me in. But he didn’t. Turn me in, I mean. He, um. He brought me back here, and got me patched up, and made sure I wasn’t--that no one was going to connect me to the stuff with Jack. And he, um, he pulled a bunch of strings to get an emergency custody order. So no one could make me go back.”

Alex breaks in, “And then he was like, ‘Hey, kid, wanna be a superhero?’”

Scott laughs--like he means it, this time. “No. Not even close. You have to understand, I was--” He stops, looks down. “Look, I know I’m kind of fucked up. I get that, I really do.” 

Alex can’t entirely bite back a laugh at that, and he feels like a complete asshole until Scott shrugs and shoots him an awkward grin. “I know, I know. But you have to understand--you don’t know what it was like before. When I first got here. I was just--I was so scared. Of everything. I didn’t really sleep. Wouldn’t let anyone touch me, ever. It was--” Scott shakes his head, laughs again. “The Professor said, years later, that it was like having a feral cat in the house. And I’d pretty much--I’d decided I wasn’t going to open my eyes again, ever, at that point; so there was that, too.”

Alex gets that part, he really does--wanting to just shut down, turn it off. Thinks about all the bargains he’s been trying to think up (all futile, because Hank says he’d absorb enough ambient radiation no matter what), what he’d trade to never have to explode again. “What changed your mind?”

Scott stands back up, leans against the wall. “So, this was before the Institute or any of that. Just me and the Professor, and I was still kind of a mess, and he was just--he was really patient. Didn’t push, about the powers or anything else. I still knew a little braille, from before, and he tracked down books so I could--which was amazing. And once he figured out that I wasn’t going to, um, answer much, he’d just sort of talk to me. Reading the _Times_ aloud, or telling me what the weather was like, or about whatever he was working on. I think he must have been--I mean, he never said anything, but all by himself, in this big old house, he had to have been pretty lonely, too. He had friends, but no one who really--and anyway, one of the things he talked about a lot was mutants.

“More and more mutants were--it was obvious there were more of us manifesting, a lot more, and people were scared. And Professor Xavier had this idea, which was mutants who could help--each other, other mutants, but also just--everyone. He thought--he believed in peaceful coexistence, but also that because we have powers other people don’t, the onus was on us to take the initiative. To use them to make the world a better place. And meanwhile, that group could look for other mutants--I mean, stopping dangerous ones like Magneto, but mostly finding new mutants, giving them somewhere safe to grow up and learn to use their powers.”

“The Institute?” Alex guesses.

“Yeah. And, I mean, I’d done--some really bad stuff.” Alex starts to break in, but Scott shakes his head, waves him off. “Look, I know I was a kid, and I know I didn’t really have a choice, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d hurt a lot of people. And--a lot of other stuff. And I thought maybe--it had never really occurred to me that I could use my powers to do something good, but this--I knew I couldn’t take anything back, but I could maybe balance the scales, a little. Redeem something. And maybe that would mean there was something _worth_ redeeming. You know?

“But mostly it was the whole idea. Of helping to fix something, and maybe keeping other kids from ending up like--” Scott pauses turns to Alex. “You, um, you said back in October that you knew you wanted to be a scientist because it let you be--kind of a version of you that you wanted to be, that you didn’t know another way to get to. And this was--not that exactly, but it was the first thing that really seemed like it mattered more than being scared to open my eyes.”

There’s a question eating away at the back of Alex’s mind, and he knows he’ll hate himself forever if he doesn’t ask. “I read--there are rumors and stuff. About--a cure, gene therapy or something. Is that real?”

Scott shakes his head. “We keep pretty close tabs. Something pops up every couple years, but so far, it’s all just rumors. Some theory that Hank says might be promising, but nothing even close to the experimental stage.”

“If you could, would you?”

“No. Maybe. God, I don’t know.” Scott paces while he talks. “Look, I--don’t like my powers. I’m sorry. I know I should be giving you a talk about how this stuff is awesome and natural and a part of you, or whatever, but my powers suck. They’re scary and destructive, and they hurt, and I haven’t looked anyone in the eye since I was a kid, and they never stop. I mean, it’s not like other people’s powers disappear when they’re not using them, but--it’s different. Mine aren’t--they don’t have any constructive use. I lose my glasses, and the options are _blind_ or _15 kilotons of TNT_.

“But the thing is, they let me do exactly one thing really well, and that’s being Cyclops. And walking away from that isn’t--I mean, there are things that are more important than seeing blue. You know?”

“Do you think that’s what I should be doing?” Alex asks. “I mean, you’re not saying it, but if it’s obviously this huge fucking moral imperative for you. And I can't--this isn't what I--I want to be a scientist. Wanted. Does that make me a bad person? Because I don't want to be--whatever the fuck this is?”

“No,” says Scott. “ _God_ , no. Absolutely not. Alex, this life is--look, it’s what I do, and I’m not going to walk away from it, but I’d never ask anyone else-- No. You’re gonna go to grad school. Be a geophysicist.”

Alex laughs, buries his face in his knees, because, _god_ , he hasn’t even thought about that, grad school and everything else. “How? I’m--Scott, I fucking _explode_. Berkeley’s--there’s just no way, and Hank says I’m constantly absorbing and releasing energy, even when I’m not--” It occurs to him, suddenly and sickeningly. “The sensors. Oh, my god. That was _me_ , wasn’t it?”

Scott’s face has gone white. “Oh, _hell_ ,” he says. “No. I mean, it could have--god, I never even thought of that.”

Alex is on his feet in a moment, pacing, connecting dots; and it’s so fucking obvious once he knows where to look. “Sunlight. _That’s why it got better in winter_. I must have been--I must have been absorbing light and then putting out energy spikes, and no one thought to--oh, _fuck_. My research. _Berkeley_.” He wants to throw up. Wants something to hit. Wants to never go outside again, to curl up somewhere in the steel-lined subbasement and just quietly--

“Fuck,” says Scott. “I’m so sorry, Alex. I should have--I didn’t even think.”

And he’s about to tell Scott to shut up, that there was nothing he could have done, when what Scott’s saying clicks into place. “You _knew_?”

Scott looks away. “I--yes and no. We--I knew you were a mutant. That’s how we found you. Cerebro.”

Alex is so angry he can hardly get the words out. “You _knew_. And you didn’t fucking tell me. _Why the fuck didn’t you tell me_?”

Scott doesn’t even raise his voice. “First of all, we didn’t know. _Let me finish._ We knew you were a mutant, but plenty of mutants never manifest powers, or have powers that are so minor they’re basically undetectable. For every Bobby, there’s going to be someone whose mutation manifests as a body temperature that’s a few degrees below normal. Second, you were _twenty_. Manifesting powers that late--it just doesn’t happen. Ever. I mean, the odds are roughly zero, or would have been if Abdol hadn’t done whatever the hell he did.” He’s being so fucking _calm_ about the whole thing, so maddeningly _reasonable_ , and it only makes Alex angrier.

“ _You still should have told me_ ,” says Alex. “You _unbelievable asshole_. This is my _life_. Solar fucking radiation. Not enough to set off whatever magic fucking tracking device you had, but enough to-- _god fucking damnit_!” Everything is a haze, and suddenly he’s got Scott by the collar, slams him into the wall, yelling, “ _You destroyed my fucking thesis_ , and you fucking _knew_ , and _you didn’t say a fucking word_!”

Scott doesn’t fight back, doesn’t even lift his hands. “I--I know. I mean, not the sensors--I didn’t make that connection, and I still don’t know if there really was one. And even if I’d told you, it wouldn’t have--it’s not like we would have had any way to work out what your powers were if they hadn’t--”

Alex almost cracks up at the _sheer fucking stupidity_ of the excuse. “Like you didn’t have a fucking sample to work from. Jesus fucking Christ, Scott, it’s not that much of a leap.”

“That’s not how it works,” Scott says. Still completely fucking calm, and it’s making Alex angrier and angrier. “It’s not like eye color or--I mean, there’s one other set of mutant siblings on record, and their powers are totally unrelated. And they’re twins. Bobby has a brother. Jean has four brothers and sisters. None of them are mutants. But that’s not--look, I know none of that really matters. I should have told you. I didn’t--I mean, the Professor was so adamant, and I swallowed every excuse, because I wanted--”

“ _You wanted another fucking secret_.”

“-- _to keep you safe_ ,” Scott finishes, which takes the wind straight out of Alex’s sails. He lets go of Scott, who slumps back against the wall, holding onto his shoulder--the same one he fucked up in March, and Alex really fucking hates himself right now. “And that meant keeping you as far away from this shit as I could. _God damnit, Alex_. You’re my brother. And _yes_ , I was wrong. About this. But if I ever have to choose between you hating me because I lied, and putting you in avoidable danger? That’s not even a choice.”

Alex forces himself to swallow back whatever he was about to yell, to take a deep breath and say, “I--are you okay? I didn’t--”

Scott waves him off. “I’m fine.”

Alex gives him what he fervently hopes is his best incredulous bitchface. Scott snorts. “I’m _fine_ , Alex. You can go back to yelling.”

Alex shakes his head. “I just--this is my life, Scott. Who the hell gave you the right to make that call?”

Scott raises his eyebrows. “Alex, it’s my job to make those calls. And look--obviously, sometimes I’m wrong. But somebody has to.”

“Christ,” says Alex. Slumps back onto the floor, head in his hands, and he’s not even trying to think about it, because it’s just _too fucking much_. “Look at us. Look at _you_ , Racer fucking X. All this time, and I never even--except everyone always knew he was Rex anyway, right?”

“Except Speed,” says Scott.

“Yeah,” says Alex. “Except Speed.”

“I really thought you knew,” Scott says. “I mean, all the jokes about Racer X, and masks, and knowing Spider-Man; and you kept bringing up mutants, and superheroes--” He sees the look on Alex’s face. “--and look, I think we’ve pretty firmly established that I’m kind of an idiot.”

And _that_ hasn’t occurred to Alex, either--that Scott thought he had figured it all out, that he’d been waiting for _Alex_ to ask. “No,” he tells Scott. “No. God. I had no idea. I thought maybe you, like, worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. or something. Definitely not-- _this_. I mean, you’re Scott. You’re my dorky big brother who builds blanket forts and kicks my ass at pool and is super into planes and doesn’t even really drink, and you’re _Cyclops_. Of the X-Men. How the fuck was I supposed to see that one coming? Your fucking _life_ , Scott!”

Scott laughs. “Trust me, I know.”

Alex looks at him, sitting there in the Danger Room; tries to reconcile this Scott-- _his_ Scott--with the guy in the visor; can’t. “What’s it like? Your powers?”

“You’ve seen them,” says Scott. “Concussive force.”

“Yeah,” says Alex. “But you said the visor--I mean, what’s it like normally?”

“Oh,” says Scott. “Hm. I can show you. If you want.”

“Sure,” says Alex. “I mean, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” says Scott. “Here.” Positions Alex a little behind him, and stands there a moment, glasses in hand; then takes a breath and opens his eyes.

Until now, Scott’s powers have been bright bursts of force. Without the visor, what pours out of his eyes is a sea of red, pulsing and crackling waves of energy. There’s a faint buzz, like power lines in summer, and Alex thinks he can smell ozone.

“There you go,” Scott says, his voice muffled.

“Wow,” says Alex, which doesn’t even come close to what he’s thinking. The red is so bright it’s painful to look at. “Is it always like--”

“Yeah,” says Scott.

“Can I--” Alex starts to ask, reaching a hand forward. 

He can see Scott tense. “Yeah. But--be careful.”

Alex edges his hand into the sea of energy. “Wow.”

“What’s it feel like?” Scott asks.

Alex runs his fingers through the edge of the red. “Pressure. Like--an air compressor, maybe. Except without the air. And kind of electric, but not really?” Looks down at his chest, and sees the first ring starting to pulse again. “Fuck. I think I’m absorbing it.”

“Oh,” says Scott. Closes his eyes, and the red is gone as abruptly as it started. “That’s probably enough of that, then.” He puts the glasses back on, turns back to Alex. “I can’t keep it up for that long, anyway. It’s like sprinting.”

Alex nods. Tries to imagine what it must be like, and all he can think of is what he does, what it would be like to explode and explode and never stop. “What does it feel like? For you, I mean?”

Scott grimaces. “I don’t really know how to describe it. Like a really weird migraine, maybe. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but it’s like--I don’t know. Someone trying to pull my head inside out through my eye sockets.”

“Ew,” says Alex.

Scott just shrugs and laughs. “You asked. What’s it like for you? Yours?”

Alex tries to think of words to describe it--the sensation of _exploding_ , terrifying and overwhelming and out-of-control . “I don’t know. Scary. It’s really scary.”

Scott nods. They stand there for a minute in silence. Finally, Alex says, “Remember when we were kids, and we’d play superheroes?”

“You could never choose powers. You wanted them all.”

“Yeah,” says Alex. “And you always just wanted flight. And that crawl space in the basement was our secret headquarters.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Scott says. “It was under the stairs, where Mom kept all the Christmas stuff.”

“Oh,” says Alex. “Yeah. I wish we could go back in time. Show them how awesome we grow up. I feel like I would have been pretty into the whole exploding thing. Back then.”

Scott laughs. “Oh, definitely. You’d have been super into it.” 

Alex isn’t sure if it’s a real memory or just what his brain has thrown together from bits and pieces of what he knows he should remember: the two of them wedged into the crawl space, stacking ornaments like grenades, sheets around their necks for capes. Scott, too serious, trying to figure out the optimal layout for their defenses. _Hey, kid, look at this_ , he thinks.

“Would you still pick flight?” he asks Scott. “I mean, if you could choose now?”

Scott looks like he’s really thinking about it, which is so _Scott_ that Alex has to bite his lip to keep from laughing. “Just for me? Or as Cyclops?”

“Just as Scott,” says Alex.

“Oh,” says Scott, like it’s been a while since he’s thought of anything in those terms. “Then, yeah. Flight. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” says Alex. “Flight sounds good.” Imagines soaring up, away, over all the bullshit of his life. Remembers-- “We never went hang gliding.”

“Right,” says Scott. “That was the week when the Professor-- We should do it. The whole trip. For real this time.”

Riding through the Green Mountains on the back of Scott’s bike isn’t quite flying, but it’s not too far off, either. “Yeah,” Alex says. “We totally should.” But the bike, the mountains, those mean outdoors, and outdoors means _sun_ , and the trip in his mind goes up in something more sudden and violent than flames. He looks at Scott, at the glasses, and finally asks the question he’s been biting back ever since Alexandria: “How do you live with something like this?”

“I don’t know,” says Scott. “The same way you live with anything, I guess. You just do.” Puts an arm around Alex’s shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. You know that, right? We’ll figure it out--your powers, and Berkeley, and everything. I promise.”

“This is--this is really big, Scott. I don’t know if I can do this,” Alex says, feels his voice catch. Thinks about them as kids, saving the world, fighting back-to-back on alien spaceships; back when the falls were never higher than a tree, and the robots and dinosaurs were make-believe. Remembers what he used to yell: “Summers Brothers against the world, right?”

“Yeah,” says Scott. “You and me, Speed Racer.” Reaches up to ruffle Alex’s hair, and Alex pretends to try to push him off, and for a second, it doesn’t matter that Scott’s a superhero and Alex is a bomb, that they’re all that’s left of their family and broken in ways that go way, way beyond whatever shattered when they hit the ground twelve years ago. Alex imagines all their pasts and presents and possible futures, stretching out in a long, curved ribbon of road; the two of them hurtling along, speeding through the turns. They’re going to crash, eventually--he knows that, as certainly as he knows anything--but for now, just for a moment, he just leans into Scott, and closes his eyes, and lets the world rush by.


End file.
